I’ve been telling you guys up in the tundra about a special series of Earth Week events on “The Tip Of The Mitt” in Michigan.

Well, Laren just sent me an update and I thought I’d share it with you.

(Note: The content is Laren’s and the reformatting is MINE. I am responsible for any errors. It’s cool, I have big shoulders… Oh yeah… anything in italics is mine, too.) 😉

Laren says:

Greetings, Earth Loving Neighbors;

Well folks, Earth Week Plus is now fully underway.

We have already held our first events. Last week we showed an excellent movie about what can happen as Earth temperatures rise. It was followed by a discussion.

We also had an informative discussion, Wednesday, at the Cheboygan Public Library, about alternative energy and home energy usage, as part of the Java Chat series, put on by the Straits Area Concerned Citizens for Peace and Justice. We had several Solar home owners present.

Three of us will be part of the Solar homeowner panel, at the Earth Week Plus Expo on the 16th, next weekend. On Thursday we showed the movie Gasland, followed by a very informative presentations, by Grenetta Thomassey from “Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council“, and also Joann Cromley, from the group “Don’t Frack Michigan“. Friday was a big night at the Headland Park, at Mackinaw City, for owl banding, and stargazing.

(Um, what the hell is a “Frack”?)

That was a Straits Area Audubon Society event.

Over the weekend there was an excellent opportunity to learn about harvesting maple sap, and boiling it down into syrup. Due to predictions of rain on Sunday (it has been a nice day), this event was expanded to include both Saturday and Sunday, at the Silent Sport Lodge, south of Wolverine. That is what you may have already missed, but there is a lot more to come.

On Tuesday Night, if you are in the Upper Peninsula, there will be a showing of “Caribou Summer“, by biologists Kathy and Jim Bricker, in Sault Ste Marie.

On Wednesday night, the Straits Area Audubon Society is presenting a spectacular event, for the whole family. Be sure to not miss this one, and definitely bring the kids to see their “Snakes Alive” presentation, at the Cheboygan Public Library, That is April 13th. Starting time will be 6:30 PM.

It is free.

Thursday 4/14 brings another great environmental movie and discussion, in Earth Week Plus’ movie series, at Cheboygan’s Public Library. This week’s feature will be a great movie called “WaterLife” about a walk around the Great Lakes, to see how we are treating our amazing waters. As we do with our movie series, there will be an extended discussion afterwards.

Rest up on Friday night, because our big Earth Week Plus Expo is happening on Saturday afternoon, from 12:30 to 5:30. There is too much scheduled at the Expo to talk about right now, but there will be sixteen separate programs, live music, live raptors, and lots of fun for the whole family.

(Raptors? Where did they get dinosaurs? It’s those dang Jurassic Park knuckleheads again, I tell you…) 😉

So, pack up the kids and head on over to Cheboygan.

(Take mine, too, huh? I could use a couple of hours off…)

The Expo will be held at the middle school. From Petoskey it is just twelve miles further than drives to places like Blissfest and Cross Village. From Gaylord, it is just a fast run up I75. And, as with all of our Earth Week Plus events, the Earth Week Plus Expois free to everyone.

Though, we ask that if you can afford it, please consider bringing a nonperishable food donation, for our less fortunate neighbors.

Don’t miss it, and tell all your friends, which brings me to the next subject, which is that we still need a little of your help, in getting the word out, to even more people.

Earth Week Plus is a grass roots project, of the people, for the people, and by the people. So, we need the help of more people, in order for many more of us to learn that it is happening.

You might just tell people who are interested in nature, and sustainable living.
Or, forward this email to them.

Or, spread the word through FaceBook or Twitter.

And, please, help us post fliers.

I think a flyer can be downloaded in PDF format from EarthWeekPlus.com. Laren sent me the PDF (because he’s smart that way…) but for some reason, I can’t get it to post properly. I’m sure I’m doing something wrong.

Put them up on any community message boards, that you know of. Print out just a few, and put them in your car, on the dashboard. Then, when you see a place to post one, you will have it, right there with you.

Earth Week Plus is for all of us.

But, those who don’t hear about it, will not be able to take advantage of this series of great free, green events. So, help us get the word to them.
I look forward to seeing you there. Please stop and say hello. I want to meet you.

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It’s time for some ISBU Inspiration!

Greeting, you “Minions of Metal!” I’ve gathered you all together today…

Wait… that’s not it…

Most of you know that I’m plotting and scheming… and even conspiring to build a house out of recycled and repurposed ISBU (Shipping Containers).

A lot of you know that we’re helping several other families do the same thing, in fact, as you’re reading this!

Most of you know that I’ve further complicated that build, by including components recycled from steel aircraft hangars that were torn down…

And, most of you know that it’s been a battle from day one…

So… as my family plots and schemes, quietly and cunningly crafting “our house that locals might loathe…”

I thought I’d show you some of the things that inspire me, as I craft our Corten Castle…

Ain’t it cool?

In the dead of Winter, you’re all ‘snuggly’ warm…

And in the Spring, Summer, and even the Fall (depending on your climate – your mileage may vary) … it’s like living in the outdoors! Talk about an inspiration! This would make me WANT to get up and greet the day!

Now, if that don’t make you wanna break out that treadmill, I don’t know what will…

I mean, you don’t want to scare the neighbors… or DO you? Hmmm?

If you built this out of SIPs, and then installed it on tracks, you could open and close it using an electric motor (powered by photovoltaic panels, naturally). It would be easy… using, say… something like a garage door opener motor, or even an old 4wd truck winch. Just apply a little bit of “Grey matter” (but not as “track lubricant! OUCH!) and you’d have a push-button house to rival some of that stuff you see on MTV Cribs! 😉

Now where’d I put that “man-thong?” It’s time to play, “Mess with the neighbor’s minds…” Muuuwahahahah!

Hey! If they didn’t want nightmares… then they shouldn’t have looked! 😉

Hurricane Katrina knocked the heck out of my photo collection, so you’re going to have to visualize this. You can do it… I’ll type slow. 😉

Yeah, I know “New Yorker’s” are crazy! Have you seen what they pay for apartments in the city? Oy freakin’ Vey! I’d have a heart attack once a month, when the rent came due! But… this guy… he gets paparazzi and media hype, and everything! 🙂

So… First thing you do, is grab a shovel.

Not that namby-pamby “use your hands and get some blisters” kinda shovel… THIS kind of shovel;

Once you get that… find a sunny spot, dig your hole, and then shore up the insides, to prevent a cave-in, later.

Dig your hole several feet longer than the container, on the “door” end. You’ll see why later.

Remember, the skin on a container is just that. SKIN. It’s not designed to take a load – soil OR water. If you don’t believe me, read THIS.

Now, to build a retaining wall to PROTECT the ISBU that will be the pool…

You can use cinder blocks, a thin steel-reinforced (rebar) concrete wall, even railroad ties… But use SOMETHING, or you’ll be either sorry, or a guest star on “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”

Cut out your drains in the bottom. Install your water returns in the sides. Do your plumbing.

Remember, don’t sniff the glue, and rightie tightie… LOL!

Now, install your drain lines in your hole, and then build a one course outline of your container bottom so that the container will sit above your plumbing. Now fill in ‘that’ inside hole until it’s level… with gravel.

Now, drag the ISBU into your hole.

Okay… don’t drag it, drop it in there carefully, after lining everything up. Be careful of the returns if you’ve placed them outside the container, in the gap between the retaining wall system.

Some people actually prefer the “outside plumbing” method. I’m not one of them.

But if YOU are… Now, you can backfill into the gap between the container and the retaining wall, if you want. Some people use gravel, some use dirt.

Hey, use old socks if you want to, but just make sure that you fill up the gaps. You don’t want the container to “bow out” after you’ve filled it with water.

I prefer gravel. It’s easy to place, strong, and easy to get back out if I have to… Click heels three times… I hope I don’t. I hope I don’t…

On the inside, most people line the container to get smooth sides. It’s easier to clean. Plus, it gives you a place to run your water return lines INSIDE the container.

Just some inspiration!

This is the best way. It’s the “Ronin Way.” Several sheets of plywood. Sand it smooth, or get the good stuff.

If your kid keeps missing his curfew, it’s a weekend of “Wax on, Wax off” with an orbital sander…

Who says you have to beat them? 😉

Now, here’s where it gets tricky…

You need a place to put the pump and filters, right? Well, that container has doors on it.

Remember?

At the door end… (remember the container is on it’s side now, so the doors will be hinged at the top and bottom) build a wall out of concrete, masonry, or whatever you can handle about 4 feet or so into the box. Make it “strong and thick” and insure that it’s firmly attached to the container because it’s going to have water pressing against it. Use tapcons or something similar to attach your new wall to the container sides.

This is going to form the ROOM for your pool apparatus, and supply storage.

Now, it’s below grade, so you’ll have to build steps down to it. But that will be cool, literally. Use cinder blocks to build retaining walls on either side, to keep the dirt from falling in Again with the cinder clocks… I know, I know… But, you’ll look like you did in high school, when you’re finished!

Think of this as Corten Calisthenics.

Build some cool steps down into the hole. Don’t bump your head on the “door/cover.”

Now, go get some sand. A LOT of sand… A truckload of sand. Builders sand.

Don’t steal it from the beach! The Green-Peacer’s will beat you to death with a biodegradable bucket and shovel!

Relax, I know what you’re thinking… All that sand… Oy Vey! Use a backhoe or a Bobcat, or a bunch of unruly kids that you are currently punishing for setting the house on fire or wrecking the car.

Even MORE inspiration!

Dump it into the big empty end of the container, and then sculpt it to form your slope for the bottom. Nobody wants a pool without a shallow end. Not all of us are Michael Phelps!

Build some steps down into the shallow end. You can use lumber, if you’re careful. Otherwise, consider forming and using concrete.

Okay, if you did it right, you now have a pool that’s about 34+’ long, and over 7 feet deep now, at the deepest point. You also have a built in pool room that is almost 8′ high, about 4 ‘ deep, and almost 9’ wide.

Now… Open that top door UP, and put a post under each end. Now, you have a covered porch on your pool room. Open the bottom one, and either remove it, or even use it as a deck.

You can easily enclose this space using a small insulated wall and a door, to cut down on pump noise.

That done, get some liner track from the pool supply store, and install it around the top edge of the container. Once you’ve finished doing that, install the plastic pool liner that you can buy from any pool supply company or store. It will fit into the liner track.

WHAT? A Vinyl pool? Ronin… Are you freakin’ nuts?

Nope. You wanna do this “yourself” or not?

The idea here is to take an ISBU container and turn it into an affordable pool, for less than half the cost of going to a turnkey pool company.

You can go fiberglass… But not in a ISBU shell. It’s a shame too, because frankly, fiberglass is the way to go. Easy maintenance, lower chemical usage, and long life that is relatively hassle-free.

But you had to go and use an ISBU… 😉

I’ve never seen a fiberglass shell that would drop into an ISBU cavity.

You can go “Gunite,” but you better have an extra $10,000 – $15,000 laying around, because you’re going to need it. Oh yeah, you’ll need a couple of contractors too. And laborers. Lot’s of laborers…

And Gunite (or concrete) pools require more chemicals, have a rougher surface (thus they are harder to clean) and they usually need replastering at about year 8-10.

Now… IF you go VINYL, you’ll be able to install most everything all by your “onesies.” As in, you and the family. And they’re easy to maintain, and fairly easy on chemicals.

There are drawbacks. People will tell you that the liner will wear out in 3-5 years. Bull. Liners last 10 years, easy. Some last longer. And, the current crop are starting to approach that 25 year “degrade and decay” mark, IF the pool is properly maintained and taken care of.

Realtors will tell you that a homebuyer won’t like your “plastic pool.” So what? You’ll have gotten years of pleasure out of it.

And you didn’t have to drive all the way to the beach, lake, or river… waste relaxation time stuck in traffic, fight for a parking space, fight for some sand to stake out, buy “overpriced and under-quality” concession stuff that they try to pass of as “food and drinks,” or dirty up your car with sand and debris on the way back. You’ll have saved enough to pay for this pool, and then some.

Just look at the Realtor and laugh. Screw them. They don’t like it, THEY can haul it out to the curb!

Yes, you’ll probably have to buy the pool liner material (which isn’t exactly cheap), and you might even have to make your own, depending on the length you go with. Or you might find a custom house that will do all the work for you. If you do this in the off-season (when work is slow), you’ll get a terrific bargain. You’ll figure this out with a few phone calls. And, if you’re really worried about that alleged pool liner “imminent failure”… this is a perfect opportunity to DOUBLE the thickness of that lining, to help prevent any tears or leaks. This isn’t nearly as difficult as it sounds. Ask your local pool guy.

We did. Our last lap pool liner was a “thick” vinyl custom, and it cost $2800, straight from the liner company. (It cost more than a normal “custom” liner because we used a much heavier vinyl that was harder to work with. If we’d used regular pool liner, it would’ve come in about $1500 or so.) We sent them detailed dimensions, they did all the work, and we got a really high quality product. If we’d “done it ourselves,” or waited until Spring… it would’ve cost about $4000.00 or more. Your mileage may vary.

Put it in the hole. Make sure the shallow end of the liner is in the shallow end of the pool. You’d be surprised how many people make this mistake and waste time and effort. Install your drains.

Now’s also a perfect time to add that solar pool water heating panel into the loop…

And maybe a few photovoltaic panels to run the pump and filter…

Can’t you just picture yourself lounging out here?

Now… about the top of that “pool room…”

Frame in a wood deck the same size as your “pool room” roof. Make sure that there are spaces between the wood decking slats. Now your pool room is basically weathered in, and it can breathe. If you’re a pool pump or filtration system, you need to breathe, trust me.

Add water, jello, or even chocolate milk. I don’t care.

Well… I do care. Chocolate milk is gonna get pretty stinky in about six hours… If you plan on doing this, make sure that you’re downwind of me, huh?

Here’s a tip for you;

SALT Chlorination. It’s much cheaper, and a lot safer.

Did you know that seawater is used to make laundry bleach?Yep. That’s right. And if it works in the laundry, it’ll work in the pool.

All you have to do is use a Salt Chlorine Generator. But why would you do this?

Ever get out of a pool with red, burning eyes? Well, it was a chemical burn from the chlorine.

Using SALT is WAY better than using chlorine chemicals. Initially, a certain amount of salt is added to the water. As water passes over the chlorinator’s specially coated plates, an electric current breaks down the salt and water into their basic elements to form sodium hypochlorite, which is the active sanitizer in all forms of chlorine. The chlorine kills algae and bacteria in the water and oxidizes the waste. Thereafter, the chlorine regenerates itself back to salt and begins the process over again in a virtually unending cycle. Since salt does not evaporate, an occasional addition of salt is needed only to replace what is lost due to the splash out, pumping out, draining or backwashing.

The obvious advantage is the cost effectiveness of the salt-water chlorination system. Imagine you spend $15 per day currently on chlorine, over a period of five years you will spend in excess of $25000. An equivalent salt water chlorination system will cost around 1/10th of that amount, with running costs being equal to 1/5th. The system would pay for itself in less than one year.

Plus, SALT IS ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY.

(Sorry, didn’t mean to yell…)

Stay tuned…

And send me a picture. All I have left now are these “inspirations.”

Stinkin’ Hurricanes, anyway… mumble, grumble, snort!

And since you’re still here;

If this blog has helped you, educated you, amused you, or even just made you shake your head and wonder why I’m not locked up in some room clad with rubber tiles…

Please know that this site has required a great deal of money, time and effort to develop & maintain. If it’s been useful to you at all, and you can afford to… You can help my family and support this site by making a small donation by hitting that Paypal button up there on the right.

Paypal is the VERY BEST “secure” way to donate to any cause… like ours.

This will help keep us alive while we try to remedy our own situation, and empower me to carry on writing, maintaining, providing countless hours of hard work, and including any updates or topics that you might suggest.

And… No anatomical impossibilities, huh? I’m not as young as I used to be…

I suspect that people tune in here to watch “the train wreck” that occurs on each page… 😉

And I realized that (not unlike just about everything else on the planet) I had no clue as to how to figure out the answer. I mean, if I had all the answers, would I be living in a horrible hovel in Mississippi?

I think not. 🙂

So, I went to a forum filled with people whose brain cells actually touch each other… and asked about how one figures out these “complicated and mysterious things…”

I was recently contacted by a “programmer type” who was answering said inquiry about how I could determine the number of people whose minds I had bent… in my attempt at recruiting more “Corten Cronies…” 🙂

We traded some information, and he did a little bit of checking, and it turns out that I have over 20,000 subscribers to my RSS feed.

How he determined that, I have no idea. There’s gotta be some kind of mistake. That number CAN’T be right… It’s IMPOSSIBLE.

I PRAY that it’s wrong. Why? Because if it’s right (and it can’t be…), all I know is that I’m gonna be looking at defending myself in a “class action lawsuit” when those 20,000+ people get together and decide to prosecute me for filling their head with “Corten Craziness.”

Now… as I’m a Jew (hey, you all know that… right?) I’m used to persecution… so… bring it on! 😉

As a “Container Cult Leader…” I can only say that I’m just trying to “spread the word among the pilgrims…”

And, after all, somebody has to lead us to the “promised land…” huh? Might as well be me.

I’m gonna have to do some more homework on this one, because if I have a bunch of RSS “follower’s…” the rubes… 🙂 …

… then my “view” count (not my “bodycount”) should jump quite a bit, with each published post. And by gauging that, I can start compiling data that I might be able to find useful. You know, stuff like which posts do well and point to stuff I can fill your minds with, to further cloud the issues with facts. Wait… you’ll get the posts whether you want them or not, in an RSS situation, right? Oy Vey…

I wonder… Is “RSS post retrieval” considered some “other” kind of server action, thus it doesn’t actually get processed through a counter system I can see? Hell, I don’t know. All this is giving ME a headache.

So… back to the show;

As you probably already know my family has decided to irritate just about everyone on the planet, for daring to stray outside the box… by wanting to live in one. At least, that’s the neighbor’s consensus…

While the idiots… um… er… “authorities” in Mississippi continue to “debate” the merit of our home project, we’re helping other people (who fortunately live in areas where people are using theirs brains for something besides fertilizing their hair) build THEIR ISBU homes.

This is frustrating, but I’ll tell you, it definitely has moved us to looking beyond the borders of this backwater State, to find a suitable home, for our home. And that search continues, with vigor.

Why… just the other day I was talking about going out to the garage and loading up the car…

And heading for greener pastures. But then I remembered… we ain’t even GOT a car, much less a garage.

But, we’re working on it… 🙂

When I’m not researching… I’m packing stuff up, just so we have a little bit more room around here. You’d be surprised just how much space this little tiny kid takes up…

Ever step on a Hot Wheels car in bare feet at 3am in the dark… trying to get to the bathroom? I’ve actually learned to suppress a scream of pain!

Now that’s a handy survival skill! Ole’ Freddie Kruger and his hatchet won’t know I’m hiding in the closet! 🙂

Where was I? Oh yeah…

Right now, I’m boxing up old DVD movies that we haven’t watched in a while… And…

I have a DVD of a cartoon movie called Titan AE…

… in that movie, “no-good rotten S.O.B.’s” blow up the earth, and the heroes (who barely escape the disaster as children) grow up to fight like dogs against the high-tech bad guys… until they finally overcome insurmountable odds, danger, death threats, and airline food… and create a new planet.

That’s short for “Bug Out Box” to those of you who aren’t savvy in “b@stardized survivalist lingo…”

Actually, a BOB is really a designation for a “bug out bag”, but we thought BOL (Bug Out Location) sounded stupid… 🙂

If we’d have titled this post “All About BOL” you wouldn’t have gotten it and we couldn’t have included both a reference to TITAN AE and a chance to further immortalize “the BOB” – Bob Vila…

And, I got a lot of heat for it. Surprisingly, I got even more heat than I anticipated. But, most of it wasn’t from people claiming I’d ambushed Intershelter’s polycarbonate dome project…

And, it wasn’t from people who were mad because I took the “name of Bob in vain…” 🙂

All Hail “THE Bob.”

It was from people who thought that an Emergency Shelter that only enclosed 300 square feet was a dead end!

Now, I’m betting these same people pack up the SUV and go camping in the summertime, in a tent or even an RV that is MUCH smaller than the octagonal shelter that I suggested could be built… for pennies on the dollar, compared to “off-the-shelf” housing solutions.

Lemme see… the average 9’x10′ is only 90 square feet, with no room to go UP. Even if it’s something cool like this:

It’s not gonna be more than about 120 square feet…

But wait! There’s MORE!

f “your tent has wheels…” the national average for RV’s is right at about 20′ (according to national auto insurance surveys I read) and we all know that the maximum width for an RV is right at about 8′.

Ya like that curly-cue “I” thingy? I just wanted to demonstrate how much style and sophistication I possess… I just usually don’t waste it on “the likes of you!” 😉

So, there’s 160 square feet, plus a loft or two, maybe. 200 square feet, tops. And, I guarantee you that RV or trailer is gonna cost you way more than $6200, if you bought anything with any quality built into it.

So, from where I’m standing, 310 square feet sounds pretty luxurious. But just for the sake of argument, let’s see where this “dead-end” octagon get’s you.

If you build it the way I described it, you have this:

It’s 310 “clear-spanned” square feet, to cut up any way you please. I could easily sleep 12 men in there, if I had to. And, I’d have room for all of their gear.

But, if you delete just one wall, and “you did the math….” (remember the “pop quiz?”) you’ll install a 20′ shipping container into that pre-engineered 8′ x9.6″ opening, and you have this:

Now, if you were to put your kitchen, a storage pantry, and a bathroom into that 20′ “add-on,” all your plumbing would essentially be in the same place. There IS space for all three, you just have to get creative.

Build a galley kitchen and you’ll get about 16′ of countertop out of that kitchen (8′ on each side), and a huge pantry right behind it. Your kitchen at home may not even be that large. Build that pantry “galley style” too (gaining yourself several deep shelves on each side), and you’ll have a passageway back to a big over-sized bathroom in the rear. Yes, a washing machine will fit in there, too. It’s not gonna be a cave, either. We’ll plug in some strip windows over the top of the kitchen and pantry to add some daylight.

The bathroom will get windows of it’s own, so it will be “bright and airy.” I guar-unnnn-tee!

NOTE: NO Dryer. It takes too much energy to dry clothes that way… especially when you’re making your own power or trying to make ends meet during hard times. Hang your clothes outside and let the sun work on ’em. They’ll smell better, too!

If you have to have a dryer, then just reduce the size of the pantry and put the washer and dryer across from each other, ya big wuss! 🙂

addendum: If you’re MADRIGORNE… I guess that you can have a dryer. Nobody likes doing “frozen clothing” aerobics. But no one, else… the rest of you are all “wussies…” 😉

Okay, back to the basics;

Now, you have a big open “gathering/sleeping room,” and a “kitchen wing.” And that ISBU connection was pretty easy, even for you! 😉

But wait! There’s MORE…

I bet you could do it a few more times. After all, an octagon has (8) sides, right?

So, instead of buying (1) 20′ container, and just hacking the doors off of it…

Buy (3) more 20′ High Cube containers. Don’t buy 40′ boxes and cut them up like we did the first time. You CAN do it, but it’s hard work. And, the building inspector will drive you crazy with requests for engineering formulas and “proof.” So let’s just spend a few more dollars, and get rid of a bunch of headaches. Okay? Okay? Hey! I’m talking to YOU. 😉

Now, you WILL have to modify your roof slightly, to allow for that new section of roof (over the new ISBU) to kiss it, but it will be well worth it. (I suggest putting a Hip Roof over the 20′ box sections. A Hip Roof is strong, durable, really weather resistant. I’d top it all off with Standing Seam Metal Roofing.)

And, hey… while you’re at it… weld the angled corner braces from the old wall sections to each side of the container openings, and you’ll get an incredibly (and I mean INCREDIBLY) strong box. After you do that, it’ll look like this:

Now, I went ahead and drew in some interior walls for you, but it’s just to demonstrate just how much room you end up with. Plugging those (4) sections of ISBU into the Octagon grants you the ability to house a pretty good sized family, and guarantee that everyone has their own space.

In the Master bedroom, note that there is a built-in shelving system (right across from the closet) that will hold pull-out baskets for clothes. It’ll hold 24 (1 cubic foot+) baskets – 2 for you, and 22 for her… After all, a man’s gotta have a place to put his socks and skivvies, right?

You’ll also get a coat closet (so that all your “survivalist friends” will think you’re “royalty”…) and an “office” right behind that, so you can jump on the computer and play games, to wile away the hours out of sight of your better half. After all, if she can see you, you’re not out doing chores, huh? 🙂

The configuration I’ve shown you would allow a family of 6 to live “out and away” for quite a while, in relative comfort. And, they could do it pretty affordably.

A nice place for Mom and Dad to bed down…

Just add a well, a septic tank, a solar panel or two for hot water production, and an array of photovoltaic panels, or even a wind turbine for power (electricity) and you’d be “totally off-grid and definitely in style.”

If you want to go a step further, add a greenhouse and a water tank/cistern.

As you can see, it’s very “doable” by anyone that can use basic hand tools.

Apparently, it boggles the minds of some of my readers, that anyone would address the concept of actually having to walk from one space to another, to accomplish a task.

Where in the world would we get such a crazy idea?

Are we nuts?

Did we grow up raised by wolves?

Are we (gasp!) Democrats?

(Sorry, just threw that last one in for “sport…”) 🙂

You’d think we were hankering for a return to the Stone Age, but we’re not. Okay, maybe just a little bit… “Bubba’s hunting Brontosauruses…” Can you imagine what a funny reality TV show THAT would be? Makes me laugh just thinkin’ about it! 🙂

Where was I? Oh yeah…

Remember… not all that far back in our Nations great history, brave families braved the planet, by doing exactly what we’re suggesting.

They sailed the plains and prairies in Conestoga Wagons, and then got out their handy dandy “Ronco Chop-a-matics“…

By the way… they even had “bio-fuel” back then… ‘cept… they actually ATE the corn… 🙂

And they built log homes out of sweat, blood, and a lot of profanity, let me tell you!

How do I know this? Well, I’ve actually participated in the building of a log home or two, and lemme tell you… the language around those sites can make a sailor blush!

“Puritans” my butt! I bet that they swore like “Bikers at a buttkicking contest!” They did too!YOU try living like they did… 🙂

Where I live… If you get on Highway 49 headed North, from Gulfport, Mississippi and head toward Hattiesburg and Jackson (the State Capital), you can still see some of these “homespun” structures housing families, to this very day. Keep driving up into the heart of Tennessee, and you’ll find them used as “monuments.”

And… a large majority of those cabins turned out to be “two-roomers.”

Take this plan, for instance;

Some of them still have old highway billboards being used as roofing material. I kid you not!

And hey! If you look closely… you can even see the origins of “housing terminology” that we still use today…

Words like “breezeway” for instance… It came from the term “dog trot.” It was the place where the DOG trotted between the houses two structures. In the Deep South, the term “dog trot” is still used, to this very day.

When those “Son and Daughters of the South… and all parts in between” needed more space, they just built another “pen.”

Hey, don’t blame me… that’s what they called them!

Separate buildings were necessary… It’s because you can’t really expand an “interlocking log” cabin, because you need the corners to hold it up.

So, we’re changing the name of our project, from “the Ewok Village on Acid” to “The Demented Dog Trots of Dixie.”

Just thought that you should know…

Stay tuned.

Okay, you all know what’s going on with my family, so I’m not going to beat you up with that…

If this blog has helped you, educated you, amused you, or even just made you shake your head and wonder why I’m not locked up in some room clad with rubber tiles…

Please know that this site has required a great deal of money, time and effort to develop & maintain. If it’s been useful to you at all, and you can afford to… You can help my family and support this site by making a small donation by hitting that Paypal button up there on the right.

Paypal is the VERY BEST “secure” way to donate to any cause… like ours.

This will help keep us alive while we try to remedy our own situation, and empower me to carry on writing, maintaining, providing countless hours of hard work, and including any updates or topics that you might suggest.

And… No anatomical impossibilities, huh? I’m not as young as I used to be…

How do you “guerrilla” around a 9,000 pound ISBU, when you don’t have a crane??

I’m about to show you how they do it in Nicaragua. It may be ugly… it may be risky… but it works.

Now, this isn’t the first ISBU (shipping container) house to be built in Nicaragua (like the builder claims)… far from it. That part is an outright lie. They could be found there in the 80’s, when a lot of us were down there “playing peek-a-boo in very ballistic Banana Republics.”

Back in the heyday… United Foods used to bring them down, to load them up with produce headed for America. And, they used to just get up and walk away, in the middle of the night.

Now, the Russians used to bring them in too, in order to stuff them to the walls until they were bulging, and then send them back to Moscow laden with produce, after Chernobyl sterilized most of the Ukraine in the late 80’s.

I know that’s true, too, because we turned a lot of those containers (and the ships they were “attached” to) into “artificial reefs.”

So, they were plentiful.

I’ve actually been to places in Nicaragua that were constructed of ISBUs, whole villages wrapped in Corten Steel. In fact, we used to joke that we’d accidentally eaten something toxic and (upon awakening, after the fever finally broke) found ourselves in the middle of a bad Hollywood Sci Fi Movie set. We’re talk “Mad Max” here…”

You could find these places from San Juan Del Norte, north to Punta Gorda, and even further north to the Rio Escondido, for sure. We were never quite sure how they GOT there, as the nearest shipping port was quite a distance away.

You can also find them on the “good side” where all the surf camps are.

In remote locations such as these, we used tractor buckets, backhoes, and even Lulls, with straps thru shackles at the corner “points” to haul them around. It just takes a steady crew, and some guts.

And Nicaragua is trying to become the “Riviera of Central America.” These “fast-built” ISBU homes may just make some of that “aspiration” possible.

American dollars, fleeing a rapidly failing economy will do the rest… Hey, it ain’t Rio, but it’ll do… and it’s ten times better than Panama!

It’s me again…

I’m like that unruly relative who keeps showing up at the front door because: “My wife threw me out again, because I didn’t do nothing wrong, except get really hammered… again… and then wreck the car… again…” 🙂

WAIT! That’s not it! Nuh-uh! I’d shoot that guy in the head. Twice!

I’M the guy building a home for his family, out of shipping containers and aircraft hangar parts. And, I’m teaching other people how to do it, too! And… some of them are actually listening to me… the rubes! 🙂

Seriously, we’re trying to demonstrate by example that you can build your own affordable, sustainable, energy efficient home without being a NASA scientist or tying yourself to a huge mortgage, or living a life fueled by “keeping up with the Joneses.”

And we’re doing just that. 7 of my families are building their own homes, as I type this. You could be too…

NO! Not “7 of my families” in the biblical sense! What are you, nuts? 🙂

Anyway…

In between fighting with Planning and Zoning Nazis and the State of Mississippi, and helping other families get their projects moving, I check my email. I don’t know WHY? Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.

Every time I open my email… I get accused of being (a) stupid, (b) crazy, or (c) both.

But… you know what they say… “sticks and stones…”

I’m just going to have to change my email address so that my Mom doesn’t know what it is! 🙂

Lately, I’ve been getting a ton of flack over this whole “ISBU” thing…

Okay, so it’s not just “lately,” it’s been since Day ONE…

And, I get all kinds of people who send me stuff that starts out with:

“Forget that ISBU nonsense! I’ve read all about these polycarbonate domes on the market now, that are touted as being ‘the next big thing’…”

I keep having people ask me about the “domed shelter” idea… you know the ones I mean… that come in a 20′ diameter (314 square feet) configuration.

And okay, I’m warning you up front, that I’m going to have some fun, at Intershelter’s expense. And, I hope that they have a sense of humor.

Look, I’m well known because I say exactly what’s on my tiny little mind.

You don’t like it? Well… Tough Noogies…

I’m not a politician or a diplomat. If you have any doubts about what I’m talking about, read the disclaimer over there on the right side of your page. Capish?

In advance: I don’t hate their product at all. In fact, it’s kinda cool. But like every “shelter solution,” it has it’s potentials, and it’s pitfalls.

You want something that you can deliver by C-130 aircraft or military helicopter and slap up in a hurry, when you’re on an expedition into the Great White North, to document Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, or even a bevy of attractive Eskimo girls in seal fur… this may be the solution.

Wanna explore the Sahara looking for buried African treasure troves? Well, give a bunch of camel’s a humongous hernia… or parachute a bunch of these puppies into your base camp. Hey, all those Nigerian Internet scam artists had to hide the loot somewhere, right?

Wanna start a cult out in the middle of nowhere (that you can pack up and move at a moments notice)? You know… like when the trigger-happy guys from ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) show up dressed in bulletproofs… after they figure out your “current” address? Okay, here ya go!

And, they can even interlock, to form big old “chemistry class bubbles!” Yahoo! 🙂

Wanna have a “Jewish Jamboree” in the land that Moses spent 40 years exploring? I bet you could even find a Kosher bunch of “half shells…” Um… maybe not. Shellfish ain’t never kosher! And… Probably not even plastic “half-shell – Jonah eating” shellfish. We’ll have to ask a Rabbi… Oy Vey! 🙂

Looking for a cool camping “tent” that ain’t a tent? One that’ll make your kids really mad at you, when you make them haul it out of the truck, piece by piece, to erect in the clearing of your choice? Okay! This will do the trick!

(And, it’ll keep the little buggers out of your hair all weekend, because they’ll be so mad at you for making them do chores! And, they can’t kill you by sneaking up and burning it down… that burning insulation will make a terrific popping sound as it combusts! ) 😉

Hey all this talk about “popping sounds” is making me hungry… Time out while I make a batch of popcorn! 🙂

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah…

Does the dome system have some really cool “Military Applications?” Probably, if you can find a way to insure that it’s capable of being transformed into something “anti-ballistic.”

Nothing screws up “a nice dream about home…” like getting shot in the butt… while it’s still in your rack.

But is it really an affordable housing solution? I’m not so sure…

Let’s run it up the flagpole, and see who salutes… okay? 😉

The domes we’re talking about are made of a very cool polycarbonate panel system (that you can insulate for $2,500 extra) that costs about US$12,000+ for the base structure. (This figure is based on the most recent pricing data I’ve seen – as of November 10th, 2009)

So… that’s $14,500.00 plus crating and shipping, for an empty, non-floored, non-foundationed, insulated 20′ beer cooler/dome. And that shipping and handling is going to add at least another $500 bucks…

(I’m being generous here, it will probably cost substantially more.)

But hey… they gotta be cool, because they (somebody overheard one of the manufacturers reps say it, repeatedly…) claim that Brad Pitt bought some of them, right?

So what? That’s almost $48 per square foot! WTF? Are you absolutely freakin’ nuts?

Sorry… lost it there for a moment… Let me just take several deep cleansing breaths… ah… that’s much better! 🙂

Evidently… my suspicions have been confirmed. Even if Brad was “mondo cool enough” to get Angelina… (sigh! excuse me a moment while I pleasure myself with a little daydream about “Angie baby“)…

How can you not love this face? (sigh!)

… if Mr. Pitt thinks that these domes will work as “affordable permanent housing,” well… Brad Pitt is a complete whacko! He’s “Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs” crazy… His “bats” have bats… in his belfrey.

But; “wait a minute…” you say… “domes have some good things going for them!”

They look really cool!

Yeah, I agree. They DO look cool. IF… you’re an Eskimo! Otherwise, you live in a house that looks like it fell out of a seagull’s butt…

And hey! I mean… NO corners – So… No place for the wind to grab, during a “big storm event.” No wind shearing!

Okay, I’ll give you that one…

“They’ll withstand a Category 5 hurricane direct hit! I know it’s true ‘cuz they said it on their website! I think… “

Uh huh… Sure it will. Prove it. THEY haven’t.Give me the address of the house. I’m POSITIVE that they didn’t say that. That would be incredibly stupid. Not even an idiot would say that.

And… because it has NO corners… floodwater goes around them without knocking them down… right? Well Ronin? What you gotta say now, Mr Smarty Pants? Huh?

Um… Jeez, you are one gullible sap, aren’t you? You honestly believe that a wall of hurricane driven water won’t knock down a plastic dome that weighs nearly nothing, in comparison… Uh huh… again… PROVE IT!!

Well, okay… you gotta admit that they’re easy to wash… Just start hosing off the top, and it’ll all come running down, and wash the sides.

Seriously, when’s the last time you washed the outside of your house? Me? Like NEVER. That’s what G-D made “rain” for… duh! 🙂

And when they’re all shiny clean? Those domes will still look like great big bird droppings. 🙂

So, when the poop hits the fan… there’s gonna be a line for them at Walmart, huh? Just whip out that GoldCard, and “Kerblammo!”

Instant shelter…

Well, “bull-hoo-hoo-hoo-freakin-hooey!”

First, who is their right mind would live in a plastic dome, without any insulation? And, what Planning and Zoning Nazi would let them, even if they wanted to?

That said, why does the insulation cost extra? Hmmm? Why didn’t they just include it in the first place?

That’s just kinda STUPID, with a “capital” STUPE! But, I could be wrong. It could happen… some day. 😉

And, I could go on about the polycarbonate shell, but I’m trying not to make you feel like a complete imbecile… sort of…

I mean, it IS kinda fun… ya big dope! 🙂

Here’s the one big problem with a dome…

Ever tried to live in a round room?

Ever tried to lay one out so that you could use decent “off the shelf” materials to finish it out?

Ever tried to do it without being a Master Carpenter? Ever tried to cut exactly correct complex curves, into every single piece of wood in the freakin’ place? Huh? Well?

Ever tried to squeeze every wasted part of a circle into something usable?

Well, have ya, punk? 🙂

There’s a better way… if you’re not stupid.

You’re not, right? Cuz’… I mean.. If ya are, you better stop reading now… and head on over to “Google Games” or something… 🙂

Now where was I? Oh yeah… and pay attention, because there’s a “pop quiz” at the end….

I need an insulated shell with an area of approximately 310 square feet, right? One that I can haul in by myself, without any heavy equipment…

Here’s how I’D do it;

(Now remember, Ronin don’t have a team of NASA engineers, or a plastics lab, or a manufacturing facility, or a million dollars in start-up money. He’s flyin’ solo…)

Start with 1″x 4′ x 8′ sheets of plywood. Exterior grade, about (16) of them will do. Match that with (12) 4′ x 12′ x 1/2″ sheetrock panels. Get the mold resistant ones, huh? Condensation is a real pain in the butt…

Put that all together with some spray-on closed-cell foam insulation, and you’ll get pre-Insulated and Interlocking 4′ x 8′ “sandwich” panels, that paired up… will form (8) 8′ x 8′ Wall assembly sections of your octagon.

NO! Not “Octomom…” If she’s gonna live there, you’re gonna need a LOT more room… and medication. A truckload of med’s….

2″ of sprayed on closed-cell foam would provide approximately r14 walls. You’ll need that much insulation at LEAST.

But, just for the sake of holding you up to public ridicule, we’re just gonna go “cheap…” 😉

Precast steel corner pieces will adjust each wall assembly to the “right” angle, and that will allow assembly of the “octagon.” These pieces already exist, off-the-shelf, so why make them, when you can buy ’em already? Look ’em up in a catalog on-line… that’s what I did.

Buy em LONG. At least 10′. We want at least 18″ up over the top of that wall. Why? Well, if we extend the supports up past the top of the insulated panels we just made, we can put thick clear plastic sheeting in there to “daylight” the center of that octagon.

And, if you keep following this post series, you’ll see what else you can do with an 8’x9’6″ opening.

But for now;

Several different “panel component” assemblies will allow for window insertion or door insertion, etc…

Of course, you could always install a set of 8′ sliding glass doors, too. Just replace one wall assembly with the door set. That’d bring in a ton of light, and even help you heat the home, if you used a thermal mass floor… like maybe concrete. And you could do it for the price as one of the wall assemblies, if you used a “salvaged set” from a scrapyard or salvage supplier.

The octagonal roof would simply be (8) interlocking SIPs (Structural Insulated Panels) approximately 10″ thick. Each panel would be light enough to be handled by (2) men. The assembled roof would require no “support.”

In the center of the roof would be a “draft inducer assembly” built into an 8 sided SIPs “receiver” to complete the roof.

This inducer would allow a wood stove or other heating device to be placed in the center of the housing module, to heat the unit. Or… forget the draft inducer, and install a skylight.

This entire housing module would “flat-pack…” enabling it to be transported by a pickup truck or small flatbed trailer..

Assembly onto a pre-built wooden “foundation” platform would take approximately 3-4 hours, with 2 able-bodied men.

Yield: (1) Small (approx 310 square foot) family unit with a 12′ roof, includes sleeping loft, kitchen, bathroom, living area, and additional sleeping quarters for Ma and Pa Kettle.

Cost for shell:

Note: I’m just talking about the empty structure (just like the dome shell quote), the foundation is extra.

$6,199.00 OR $19.99 per square foot.

Now… you have a complete shell with r15 (actual) walls that perform like r19, and r41 (actual) roof that performs like r62.

What? What’s this “actual/perform” crap?

Because air-tightness, moisture resistance, and thermal mass are properties that are inherent with closed-cell foam and SIPS, so they will out-perform their given R-Values in comparison to fiberglass batts. That’s why! Don’t you READ the blog? Well? Huh? 🙂

Now… just add (on your own dime, because we’re just trying to compare “likey-likey”) a concrete foundation or an elevated wood deck platform, maybe a solar panel to help with domestic hot water production, and even a photovoltaic panel or two, to bump that utility meter backwards a little bit… plus the necessary electrical and plumbing.

Back to “spendy-spendy…”:

Waterproof it (just in case, even though that closed-cell insulation forms both a water AND a vapor barrier), side it, and slap some felt and shingles on the roof.

Roofing material for that 325+ square foot roof is going to cost you about $600.00

And, yes… even the “Dome nuts” agree with me that it uses 50% less energy than other existing HVAC units.

If you’re “careful shoppers,” and you “google” your brains out… that HVAC system is gonna cost you about $3,000.00 to $3,500.00. I know it sounds steep, but you’ll thank me later…

Now, you have a home that can be heated to 72 degrees year round – summer heat or winter snow… for just pennies a day. Plus, it has a built in battery back up system that will operate it for up to 12 hours, if the power fails.

It runs on DC voltage, too. Couple that baby with a dedicated photovoltaic panel array, and you’d have a killer heat/cooling system, that didn’t cost you a dime to operate. Ever.

Okay… ‘cept maintenance. Sheesh… everybody’s a critic! 🙂

It’s not like I’ve actually thought this out or anything, but…

Do all that, and then throw in some nice patio furniture (because it’s cheap, durable, washable, easy to haul up there in your pick-up, and it’s probably on sale right now, at a Walmart near you!) and voila!

Instant “BOB” (“Bug-Out-Box”) easily assembled in a week.

A WEEK. TWO weeks… TOPS.

And, if you’re careful, you’ll probably have spent that $15,000+ that those dome guys were trying to “bamboozle” you out of… but you’ll have AN ENTIRE HOUSE, filled with BRAND SPANKING NEW appliances and fixtures.

Okay, they’re not really trying to bamboozle you!! Those domes cost money! They put some serious work into producing them. They’re worth every penny that you spend for them, in the right conditions and circumstances.

If I was faced with ANY of the scenario’s that I described up at the top of this post… (especially that “cult one…”) I’d buy one, myself… or maybe 12! 😉

But, for that kinda money, or maybe a little bit more (if you buy the “super deluxe” HVAC unit I showed you) you can have an entire house that will last for years… that any idiot can build… all by themselves in just a few weekends….

AFTER they built the foundation, and installed the septic tank. Duh! 😉

So what if it’s not an ISBU! I don’t care, as long as your family is safe. That’s the ONLY thing I care about…

And… it’ll be complete and ready to move into at a moment’s notice.

For a few bucks more, you can turn that same box into an eco-friendly completely off-grid home (simply by adding some more photovoltaic panels to your array), perfect for weekends in the mountains, or even as an emergency shelter, when things go nuts.

Brad Pitt… what a moron… lucky… but a moron if he thinks these domes are the answer to “permanent housing”… IMHO.

I hope he doesn’t. Angelina deserves better… 😉

(Picture Ronin rolling his eyes, and waving his finger in a circle around his ear…)

Now, if I build one of these little houses… (again… Shhhh!)… I’m gonna come in WAY under that…

… because I’m going to use salvaged cabinets from a “Habitat for Humanity” store, recycled “appliances and fixtures,” and anything else I can get “recycled,” like doors and windows.

And, I’ll do almost ALL of the labor myself.

I’ll spend about $10-12,000 to do it, all the way through. And, you’ll never be able to tell the difference.

Wait… yes you will… Mine will be the one surrounded with barbed wire… and “Border Buddy” landmines. 😉

YOU could do it too. This ain’t rocket science…

In conclusion (I bet you thought that this would never end, huh?);

Those polycarbonate domes would be terrific as “fast-set” Emergency Housing, or a FEMA alternative. Any idiot (myself included) can see that! And, they’d also be great for temporary quarters for a homeless population while permanent structures were being prepared.

But as a “permanent” solution? No, I’m not convinced.

But wouldn’t they make a cool “camping” alternative?

“I’m sleeping in that camo speedbump, right over yonder…”

(I know… I’m gonna get “hate mail,” and probably even a letter from Intershelter’s lawyers…)

But Ronin… I have 8 kids…

C’mon… you knew I was gonna slip a container or two in there somewhere, now didn’t you? 😉

Stay tuned.

Okay, you all know what’s going on with my family, so I’m not going to beat you up with that…

If this blog has helped you, educated you, amused you, or even just made you shake your head and wonder why I’m not locked up in some room clad with rubber tiles…

Please know that this site has required a great deal of money, time and effort to develop & maintain. If it’s been useful to you at all, and you can afford to… You can help my family and support this site by making a small donation by hitting that Paypal button up there on the right.

Paypal is the VERY BEST “secure” way to donate to any cause… like ours.

This will help keep us alive while we try to remedy our own situation, and empower me to carry on writing, maintaining, providing countless hours of hard work, and including any updates or topics that you might suggest.

And… No anatomical impossibilities, huh? I’m not as young as I used to be…

It might be – if you’re a Realtor… right about now.

Try saying THAT three times fast… It’s harder than trying to choke downyour Bubbeleh’s awful latke’s…without hurting her feelings!

(That’s “Grannie’s terrible pancakes” to you Gentiles out there!!) 😉

For the last 18 months, my family has been traveling down that rock-strewn road that will ultimately lead to finally having a safe, affordable, and sustainable home for our family.

Now, in our case, most of the rocks and pitfalls have come in the form of “authority,” as in… “NO! You can’t do that here, you idiot!”

It seems that ISBUs – Shipping Containers (and the use of alternative materials in general) is a topic vastly misunderstood in Mississippi. This in a State pioneered by folks who built shelter with anything they could find.

I mean… there are houses within a few minutes driving distance of my home that have old billboards used for roofing material…

Admit it, you’ve seen all those “historic record” type movies… How ironic!

So, since I have no problem beating people to death with facts, I’ve taken up the banner and I’ve marched boldly into the fray (like Joan of Arc, but with far hairier legs), to get bloodied, so that you’ll have somebody to laugh at! 🙂

This blog is evidence of that on-going battle.

And while I’m demonstrating that these steel boxes can indeed become a part of your own affordable housing solution, I get bombarded with questions.

OY VEY! Do I get questions!

Now, admittedly… most of them are “mental health” questions and questions about the safety of my family – “whose ship is quite obviously being piloted by an idiot…” if I’m to believe what I read.

… but I have thick skin, and a delete button (which is just about worn out!), so…

Where was I? Oh yeah…

I keep getting asked;

“Ronin, why should I even consider building when houses are available, and money is cheap, now?”

Argh! Here we go again…

Okay… Look… It ain’t as good as you think… Housing slumped again, in September, and it’s looking grim for October, too…

You only have to examine all that data lurking behind the figures to see that “things are not good at all in Bedrock.”

The $8,000 “first-time homeowners” tax credit boosted sales numbers temporarily, but the “money cops” (the IRS) are now saying that there were approximately 100,000 investigated cases of fraud:

Later circulated reports have put that fraud number at closer to 200,000.

How long do you think it will be before those homes end up in foreclosure, the way things are going?? House prices haven’t stabilized. These are young folks with first homes. Who loses jobs first? Young folks not all that high up on the feed chain.

I’m afraid that once again… the idiots in Congress have demonstrated that they’ve learned nothing from the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

So what if the home buyer tax credit succeeded in (artificially) boosting demand. This led to an uptick in home prices which (with high unemployment and frozen lending markets) leads to that much less affordability going forward. That’s just brilliant!

And frankly, I find it ironic that politicians assail businesses for having a ‘short term, gotta get that quarterly profit’ view while those same politicians are just as guilty of such nearsighted vision! After all, they’re the ones passing bone-headed legislation for short term political gain… at the expense of long term recovery and prosperity. Duh!

Who’s the idiot NOW? Hmmmm? See? I’m not so dumb… I’m just “slow.” 🙂

Look, the “Cash for Houses” program (in other words, the “first timer” tax credit) is just another way of bailing out the banks. It really has nothing to do with soothing the ills of families across America. I’m not sure how many readers realize this.

“Cash for Housing” is nothing more that yet another attempt to artificially support housing prices so the banks don’t have to mark down the values of these “assets.” Hello?

But wait, there’s more…

Some of you email to tell me that in your neighborhoods… home prices are going up. Okay? But WHY are they going up?

Here’s why “some” of it happens:

The crooked bankers are at it again by “artificially inflating” demand and prices.

Here’s how they do it;

There are literally thousands of bank owned homes available for sale, that have been “held in inventory.”

Here’s the game (the way it was described to me);

* Bankers take the homes out onto the market one at a time.
* They lower the price until at least two buyers come in.
* After they get the offers… they go back and force the buyers to start bidding against each other.
* And if one buyer decides not to play, the second buyer basically bids against himself…

Those Jerks! But where did they learn it?

Well… some unscrupulous Real Estate agents have been doing it for decades!

It’s unethical, but it’s hardly “new.” It’s been going on since the beginnings of the Real Estate market. Now, not all Realtors do this… Nuh – uh! Mind you, it’s just the greedy ones!

(Now if know a Realtor like this, just email me his/her address. I’ll have one of my “minion” put a flaming paper bag full of poop on their doorstep! It doesn’t matter what “market” they are in… cuz’ “I’m Everywhere!” Muwahahahah!)

That’s how “some” home prices are going up. There is the potential for an incredibly large home inventory on the market right now. But, how do you protect it, and keep it profitable? Well… bankers can inflate the home and their stock prices, so people are forced to pay more than the current market value.

But intelligent home buyers with at least enough brain cells to rub together (thus starting a fire) won’t fall for it, because they acted diligently, did a good market assessment, and then developed a buying plan from there. Anyone dumb enough to overpay for something because they think that somebody might be bidding against them is an idiot, and they deserve what they get. Says Me.

Will this activity help “inflate” a local market?

Yes. But, it’s not anyone’s fault but the buyers. The rubes… Remember that old tune?

“LET THE BUYER BEWARE!”

(Let him/her be SMART… too.)

Here’s something else to think about, though;

Banks don’t have control over all of the houses out there that can be put up for sale, so there can’t possibly be a monopoly, right?

While the economy is in the crapper, there are still people with enough money to buy housing. Let’s face it, if you have the money and enough brain cells to start a fire… NOW is a really good time to spend it on real estate.

Evictions are still happening, and they’re just as likely to happen to people who still have jobs and money, whose homes are “under water” (a condition that occurs when a home is no longer worth the existing balance on the mortgage) – so they just pack up and walk away.

There are plenty of facts to justify price increases during a recession even without any monopoly players – that’s simply Economics 101 (or maybe Economics 102… I forget which)… and it does add up.

But there’s another pair of icebergs looming in the water. They’re called “Alt-A & Commercial real estate.” These two pools are much bigger than the sub-prime market that is hemorrhaging now.

And… that wave of foreclosures is just beginning. Analysts are saying that those foreclosures won’t end until late 2012 or early 2013.

“But Ronin? What the heck is ‘Alt-A’ financing?”

Alternative-A (Alt-A) financing is basically loans for people who have better credit than subprime borrowers… but their credit may not qualify them for the best loans and the lowest rates. Or, to put it simpler… Alt-A borrowers may have solid credit, but they may want financing which is more risky than conventional mortgages.

Why would anyone want “risks” at all, associated with their mortgage? The Nimrods… 🙂

But, soon… that tsunami will break on the shores of “broke and desperate beach” and…

… then I guarantee that all hell will break loose. If you think the market is bad now, just wait… Realtors and developers will be throwing themselves off the top of those skyscrapers, right and left…

Man, if they could just grab hold of a lawyer, or better yet… a politician… before they jump off… then… um…er… never mind! Just kidding…. sorta… there aren’t enough hands to grasp enough politicians… mumble, mumble… 😉

Look, like anything else, you just have to use common sense, and think for yourself. That’s what marks the difference between a guy like Warren Buffet and that chump brother-in-law of yours, who consistently loses all his rent money.

Look, if you HAVE the money… I’m not saying that you shouldn’t buy real estate. Just use a reputable Realtor, understand that prices will continue falling, and negotiate your purchase accordingly.

However… if you don’t have money, or you’re trying to get a loan to buy a house, you may have a tough road to hoe.

And then… what we are doing with these ISBUs may look like a really good idea.

Greetings, Campers!

My family needs a house. My family has no cash. My family has a plan… and it involves Shipping Containers, recycled steel, and a lot of hard work. Hey, that’s why they call it “sweat equity”!

Most readers of this blog know that after a hurricane and an insurance company wiped out our dreams of “a life lived like regular people”, we started rebuilding.

And, our faithful readers know that our build is harder than most, because we have “complications.” My wife is seriously ill with cancer, and my son (who is 2 years old) isn’t big enough to swing a hammer yet.

I’m not going to bore you with all those details, because I’ve talked about them before. Suffice to say, we have our hands really full.

As we speak, I’m cutting “containers into boxes.” I’m helping a guy build a small “demented village”, out of damaged container segments. And, that’s work that will make a fella mighty hungry…

So, as I sit here watching the sweat rain down, for the 37th day in a row (or so it seems) …

I’m gathering my thoughts, while I gather up this sandwich, and stuff it into my face.

So… you read, while I eat, ‘kay? Try to ignore the chomping and slurping… my wife does… barely… 🙂

I was out reading on the ‘net a few days ago, and something I read made me think about a guy I’ve been corresponding with for a while.

A reader recently contacted me (we’ll call him “J”), and told me about a “Corten Cabin” he has… stashed up in the woods. It’s what some of us would call a “Bug – Out Box”.

Now, “J” contacted me, because his box looks just like my old blog header, except for his box is twice as long.

You remember… this one.

“J” has a 40′ High Cube Shipping Container sitting on cinder blocks, out in the middle of nowhere, that he uses for weekend fishing trips.

There’s a logging road for access, unmaintained for years… that’s passable when it’s not under mud, or frozen under snow drifts.

The story he told me of them towing that container into the woods was hilarious.

His father-in-law wasn’t laughing, however… It was HIS truck they blew up moving that box.

Know how much it costs to get a tow-truck back into 4wd country, to haul out a dodge pick-up? Go on, guess!

More than the truck is worth. Oy.

It reminded me of a box we moved years ago, that kept trying to drag us back down the hill, before we got to the top of it…

You know how people say that when they’re facing their death, their life flashes before their eyes? Well, on THAT day, it kept happening to us over and over again…

After a while, all we could do was hang on, and scream “Deja VU!” at the top of our lungs…

Sure, we sounded like frightened little girls! We were scared “you-know-what!” 🙂

Wait… this post is supposed to be about “J”.

While he goes up there on weekends in the summer, he’s thinking that “with the economy trying to kill itself”, his family may be forced to head there someday, to ride out whatever “chaos and storm” the “hard times to come” might bring…

Now, we’re all nervous. You can’t watch cable TV without some “expert” saying that it’s time America either “checked up, or packed it in.”

I suspect that this is in part due to Cable TV shows like “The Colony” that advocate forward thinking rolled into a nice tight ball, to form a dysfunctional view of what survival in our times may end up being like, if you’re a complete idiot…

I’ve watched a few of these “disaster simulators”. You know, “here’s a look at what happens, when the “you-know-what” finally hits the fan”.

Everybody has a scenario. Everybody is sensationalizing our plummet to a grim capitalistic death. Everybody is speculating… Everybody is plotting…

But you know… we may not all get stranded with a rocket scientist, an electrical engineer, a mechanic, a nurse, a martial arts expert, and a doctor, yada… yada… yada…

We might get stranded by our “onesies.” So, we should understand what we’re doing, in case the cavalry doesn’t show up in time to make any repairs.

Or worse, we’ll inherit that drunk jerk up the street. You know the one…

… he’s always passed out on the lawn, none of his cars run (and he’s got eight of ’em), and he’s always getting his lights turned off. The cops are always at his house… and his wife is always at YOUR house, “borrowing” groceries. Yeah, they’re gonna be a lot of help… Oy.

It’s why I also advocate knowing how to safely use and maintain personal firearms.And tasers… lets not forget tasers…

Like I was saying… before I so rudely interrupted myself… “J” thinks that if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, he and his family (he’s married with 4 children aged from 3-9) might have to be up there in his “bass box” the winter time, and he reminds me that it’s REMOTE.

There are no neighbors. There is no store. Walmart ain’t got there yet…

There’s just your wife yelling at you because you forgot the big Sam’s Club carton of toilet paper! “Ya Dumb Moron!!” 🙂

He’ll have whatever he hauls in with his small SUV, and that’s it. He doesn’t want to rely on propane, or any other type of “store-bought” fuel, simply because it might not be available.

There’s a neat little bass lake about 200 feet from his front porch.

He says you can spit into the pond, and catch a big, fat bass. (So, they won’t lack for protein.) Hence the name “Bass Box.” Paying attention? Huh?

The box isn’t anything to write home about, it’s just a big shipping container. Except for insulation and siding on the outside, it’s a regular box.

The box sits with the front face (40′) facing a few degrees of due south. It wasn’t “a solar plan”, it’s just the way the site worked out.

Actually, the “real” story goes like this:

They argued for three hours about where “the perfect spot” for the box was. Finally, his big brother said:

“@%$^#&#*!!! IT GOES RIGHT DAMN HERE!”

And then he punched “J” right in the eye. Voila! Problem solved. 🙂

He (and his brother – who is no longer available for “cabin help,” by the way…) applied a waterproof membrane on the exterior of the box. They used a rubberized roofing membrane that you spray on. ‘Cept, they used paint rollers, so it’s REALLY thick…

Why? Well, because they found 2 barrels of it… “just laying around, that nobody wanted”.

I know, I know… Don’t ask, don’t tell…

After they’d added more “water seal” to the box, they firred it out with 2×6’s. This created cavities, and those cavities received about 4″ of PolyIso foam into the cavities.

When I asked him where he got the PolyIso foam boards, he told me that they’d;

“… found/commandeered/discovered the material from a vacant industrial real estate listing they had. It was just laying there collecting dust”.

“Real Estate Plunder”. Okay, works for me…

Don’t worry “J”… we won’t hold “logistical left-turns” against you. We might, however, hold it against you that you’re a (gasp!) realtor!

Say… do you know a guy named “Clark?” Hmmm? 🙂

He put some siding scraps over the insulation that they found on “a dead building project”…

Hmmmm… I’m not sure if “J” is a recycler, or a felon. Note to self: “If getting stuff from “J”… always get a signed receipt.” 🙂

Anyway, as near as I can figure, he’s got about an r20-r30 wall system (depending on which PolyIso rigid foam product it is, it ranges from about r5 to r8 per inch). So, he can “almost” hold heat in, once he gets it there.

I say “almost” because he ran out of insulation at the top of the box, so the roof is uninsulated.

But, he’d been thinking about some kind of clerestory roof anyway to bring in more summer sun. Right now, “J” has a flat roof with a pair of vents on top, that are identical to the one depicted in my old blog header image.

Obviously, we’re going to pay some attention to this.

First, I’ll sue him for patent infringement… 🙂

You know what? I miss that old blog header. I think I’ll do my “Lazarus act” and resurrect it.

Seriously, a cool SHED roof would add headroom, a cool space for a few sleeping lofts, some additional storage, and a good opportunity for vents and windows to help with air movement and heat gain.

Plus we can use that roof pitch to catch water, and get rid of snow.

“J’s” back is gonna hurt for a week or two, by the time we’re done. Boy, I bet “J” wished he’d never heard of me, NOW…

Picture “J” sad. Poor “J.”

That just leaves the floor.

Shipping container floors are treated with serious insecticides and fungicides to keep alien bugs out of foreign ports.

Wood preservatives containing a number of organochlorine insecticides, including aldrin (no, not BUZZ Aldrin!), dieldrin, chlordane and lindane, are just the beginnings of the treatment that floors receive.

Although I know people who’d like to stuff Buzz Aldrin into a container… Oy!

I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, rip these floors out.

You can’t EVER trust the shipper you got the container from. The labels denoting the presence of that toxin are often worn off, or even just missing. Because the containers are moved so often and with so many variables… you can’t tell which ones got the toxic sprays just by looking.

Some containers escape without being sprayed or treated, but the only way to know for sure, is to take a sample of the floor out, and get it tested at a lab.

There’s are products that you can put on the floor to encapsulate them. That’ll seal the toxins in there, but they’ll still BE there. And, those products are expensive. We’ll go a different route.

Okay, all that accomplished, you’d have a “shelter”.

Inside, it’s spartan. It’s so bad that his wife won’t even go up there! Once you get through those big steel doors, you’re greeted by a few wooden shelves, a tiny wood stove, hammocks, and a blow-up mattress for a bed.

Did I forget to mention that they have a “shanty with a hole in the butt seat” kind of outhouse.

Oh yeah, they have an outhouse.

I bet he found THAT at a construction site, too… 🙂

He has a composting toilet, but it’s still in the box, in the garage. That’s kinda dumb… Lotta good it’s doing him, there! 🙂

Okay, he needs a bathroom, too.

And, he reminded me about 11 times that the box gets cold. So, we turn up the heat a bit.

He doesn’t want to try any “geothermal nonsense” (his words) because the container is already in place, and he couldn’t move it if he wanted to.

He doesn’t want to rely on solar panels, because he’s not a guy with a lot of money to set up a complete “off-grid” situation. The closest he’s come to that is a Harbor Freight photovoltaic set-up with a pair of small panels.

So, he has enough power for a laptop computer, a TV, and maybe a radio.

(I’m going to try and talk him into replacing that crap inverter, and adding a panel or two so that he can establish some kind of “real” electricity, for refrigeration and other necessities.)

With the world going digital, I wonder what TV signal he’d get? I’m thinking he uses a VCR or a DVD player… Remind me to check, okay?

He has a good water supply.

It’s a hand-pumped well that draws water from about 175 feet. If he wants a shower, he pumps water up into a black painted 55 gallon barrel on the roof of his container, and then gravity-feeds it to a showerhead.

This is great for one guy on a weekend, but it’s not gonna work for a “family in residence”. Nuh uh!

We need a solar powered pump, too.

BTW: The gray water from the shower, and doing the dishes goes out into the garden, that for now, only feeds the wild animals that live around his box.

That’s good, but we’ll do better.

They have a small swedish fireplace/stove combination installed, but they only use it for heat at night. It’s sitting on patio tiles as a hearth. So, it’s not exactly ideal. We’re gonna move the stove, and build it “into a better box”.

Again, it’s about managing resources. “J” says that he doesn’t want to use it during the day, if he doesn’t have to. Why? He hates chopping wood. HATES it! 🙂

The stove vents out the side of the box. Sort of… It’s a rather shaky connection.

So, we do some chimney repair, and then we use what I call “idiot solar” to help bump up the heat. But, we’ll use solar in a different way than “normal people” are used to.

Okay, I can see that there is a lot to do, but he needs to do it one weekend at a time.

And, he needs to do it in a way that maintains the security of the structure, so that he doesn’t end up with visitors he doesn’t want, or need, while he’s away…

So, over the next few posts in this series, we’re going to take that empty 40′ High Cube Shipping Container, and we’re going to turn it into a full blown cabin, complete with sleeping lofts, and enough interior to let it be used comfortably, for a long vacation in the woods.

It’s all about his family’s survival, if times get hard. And, it’s all about HIS survival, if his wife gets mad.

After all, out in the woods… nobody can hear you scream… Muuuuwahhahah!

We’re not just going to insulate that container top. We’re going to “weatherize” the box.

Weatherizing isn’t “turning off the heat and freezing in the dark”.

Try that with your wife sleeping next to you. I guarantee you that you’ll wake up, dead!

It’s all about using ‘stored’ energy (and less of it than you might think) combined with small resources to achieve the same level of comfort that you used to get from that McMansion of yours.

How do you accomplish this?

Well, first, you find all the “energy nasties” and you give them the boot. In this case, we’ll start with that leaky stove chimney, and work outward from there. Careful planning and attention to detail will have this family in a sustainable vacation home, in no time.

We’re also going to deal with indoor air quality.

Remember that the air quality is 2-5 times worse in your house, than the air outside it. This is a small space, that may be inhabited by a family of six (or maybe even more, if that damned brother promises not to punch him in the eye again) , under rather severe conditions, and maybe for extended periods of time.

Beyond air quality, we need to pay close attention to energy use, moisture (and it’s movement… unless you LIKE mold and mildew), combustion zones, and ventilation.

Ice dams on roofs can contribute to this problem, too. So we’re going to pay close attention to that roof, it’s construction, and it’s pitch.

We’ll talk about fixing that stove vent/chimney, before you huff and puff… and burn your house down…

We’ll talk about designing, building, and attaching a roof to catch the sun and even a couple of kids.

We’ll talk about photovoltaic panels on the cheap, and an “in-wall solar heating” solution.

We’ll talk about building loft spaces into it, to get the kids up and out of your hair.

We’ll talk about a “hidden” Master bedroom.

We’ll talk about the floor of that shipping container, and what to do about it.

We’ll talk about a kitchen (with a refrigerator, and running water, and everything!) and even a real bathroom.

We’ll talk about catching water and setting up a graywater system.

And, we’ll talk about building storage.

We need to add some serious storage into that shipping box, so that it can house all their crap, so that “J” doesn’t step on everything they own, in the middle of the night, when that damned bear is trying to beat down the door!

And we’re going to accomplish this, a goal at a time, a weekend at a time…

Why?

Because you “Show me a man who failed… and I’ll show you a man who didn’t have a good plan”.

We’re not just going to meet his needs, we’re going to exceed his expectations.

Are DOE loan standard requirements actually shooting down good projects?

We’re a country in search of affordable, sustainable, and “environmentally friendly” fuel. Right?

Well, good luck getting it!

You see… once again, Big Government is there to jump in and lend a hand.

How? Well… apparently by making it nearly impossible to get it.

I’ve told you about “government analysts” that are basically “hired guns,” whose job it is… to shoot down viable energy projects. Seriously.

“We have money and you can’t get it… Na-na-na-na-na-nahhhhhh!”

But wait! There’s more…

In Washington, the US Department of Energy is requiring that renewable energy projects meet a debt rating standard higher than 63 percent of all US corporate first-time debt issuers since 2007, in order to qualify for DOE loan guarantees. The loan guarantees were originally designed “to encourage early commercial use in the United States of new or significantly improved technologies in energy projects.”

Congressional legislation for DOE loan guarantees typically require “a reasonable prospect of repayment of the principal and interest on the obligation by the borrower.”

The Department of Energy is generally left with the responsibility of interpreting “reasonable”.

In this case, the DOE, as advised by investment banks, has developed minimum threshold for loan guarantees of a “BB” or higher rating (prior to the guarantee).

According to Standard & Poor’s, 333 of all US corporate first-time debt issues since 2007 – out of a total of 528, failed to meet that standard.

In many cases, these issuers would not have been attempting to bring transformative technologies to market in support of national policy – based on what EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said was designed to produce “green jobs, innovation and technology, and action on global climate change.”

Once again, it’s apparent that money has been placed into a non-existent pipe by Congress, so that they can make claims that they’re actually doing their jobs.

Is it any wonder that all the jobs are going to Malaysia?

According to David Jacob, Executive Managing Director and Head of Structures Finance Ratings for Standard & Poor, ratings for renewable energy projects range from BBB- to CCC, with a preponderance of ratings weighted towards CCC, or two ratings below the threshold set by the DOE. Jacob was speaking at a recent meeting on energy finance in New Jersey.

My personal thanks to the fine folks at BioFuels Digest for bringing this to my attention, and for ruining my day…

Now Serving Happy Customer Number:

1,789,846 plus 1 grumpy old codger (who needs his mouth washed out with soap!) and a couple of stalkers. :)

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DANGER!! DANGER, Will Robinson!

For the record, let me make this perfectly clear...
Blogs are about opinions. And some of us, myself included, have strong ones.
Some of us, myself included, can't be counted on to be "politically correct" all the time. So be advised that I call 'em like I see 'em, and sometimes I use strong language to make a point...
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Do you know a LEFTY Soldier who needs some “Strat Love”?

For some time now, (in fact, since 2009) we've been rehabbing and sending Lefty Fender Guitars and amplifiers to soldiers overseas.

Yes. We do Gibson's and Epi's too, but it's all about finding affordable "candidates" on a budget.

These axes are upgraded, stuffed into SKB TSA cases and then shipped out with all the goodies our paychecks will allow.

And every once in a while (about 25% of the time) a battery powered amplifier or (gasp!) a solid state or tube amp makes the trip, to insure that the whole squad can share the love that we're sending.

Yes. The amps get packed carefully into ATA cases and then... off they go!

We're NOT telling you this to ask for donations. We're trying to find hard-working men and women currently serving in harm's way... so that we can send them a gift to remind them that we love them and understand their personal sacrifices.

IF you have some old gear in a closet or laying around collecting dust, we'll be happy to rehab it for distribution to a soldier that needs some love.

If you know a LEFTY guitar playing American HERO, we wanna hear about it.

Why lefties? Because WE'RE lefties and we can work on and set up LEFTY guitars. And truth be told, lefties get left out. Lots of righty guitars in circulation. Very few lefties make it into the pool.

We think that sucks, so we're doing something about it, ourselves.

And, know that they'll never know where it came from. "Guitar GIfting" anonymously means just that. We don't need "atta-boys" or pats on the back... THEY do.

And we're gonna make sure they get them.

Feel free to contact us with candidates, or if you find something you think that we can use. We love doing this. And more importantly we know that they love it too.

Send Hate Mail Here: :)

renaissanceronin@gmail.com

Captain America would be proud!

The Secret Strat Project builds Fender and Gibson Guitars and then GIVES them away to US Soldiers serving our country overseas. You see, a little Maple, Alder, Rosewood and Ash can build a bridge all the way back home! If you'd like to help, please strum that beautiful Stratocaster with your mouse and follow the link!